Chapter seven: Sora Appears

"They are way ahead of us!" Mimi said looking at her digivice. She then noticed another signal.

"Hey someone else is with them!" She pointed out.

"They must have found either Matt or Sora." Izzy said.

"By the way, why isn't Sora with you?" Mimi asked.

"She went off looking for you and Joe thinking it wasn't safe for you two to be alone." Tai answered.

"What do you think happened to her?" Asked Dakedo.

"She might've gotten lost." Izzy said.

"No I'm not talking about that, in our time she never left to go find Mimi and Joe." Dakedo said. Everyone was taken by surprise.

"Yeah, she stayed with Tai, Izzy, TK and Kari to fight the Dark Masters." Kado said. Everyone glanced at each other with worried expressions on their faces.

"I believe it's best if we locate Sora and see if she's alright." Izzy suggested. The others agreed and started to look for her signal on the digivices. No luck, she was too far away.

"Oh I hope she's alright." Mimi worried. Makoto held her hand reassuringly. They decided to catch up to TK and the others and together search for the last digidestined who would either be Sora or Matt. They ran as fast as they could to catch up with them.

"Ariyo! Where are you?" Matt and the others called. No one answered. They continued their search.

"Hey TK, why did you say Ariyo might be with Sora?" Asked Matt.

"Because she's the only one we haven't found with a kid from the future."

"What do you mean? I thought Sora was with you and the others." Matt said.

"She was but she went off to find Mimi and Joe." Patamon explained as he rested on top of TK's head.

"And when we found them Sora wasn't there." Kari added with a small cough in her voice.

"It's strange, in our time she stayed to fight the Dark Masters." Mara said. Matt became worried.

"I hope she's okay." Gabumon said. They continued walking until Kari collapsed. Matt noticed she didn't look well and felt her forehead. She was burning up.

"We better get her out of the sun!" He said and they ran to a shady area.

"Will she be okay?" TK asked.

"I don't know TK." He said glumly. She coughed constantly. Just then TK heard a faint beeping coming from his digivice. He saw that the other digidestined were heading their way.

"Hey look, we're getting closer!" Mimi cried. Izzy looked suspicious.

"Why did they stop?" He asked. They began to run towards their friends. They were getting closer and finally were able to see that Matt was kneeling down with TK, Mara, Hiroshi, Gabumon, and Patamon observing something. Tai didn't see Kari and ran towards his friends.

"Matt! Where's Kari?" He asked as he ran up to him. Matt got up and Tai saw Kari laying on the ground. She looked feverish. Tai knelt down and lifted her head. His eyes began to water as he saw how helpless she was.

"Kari? It's me Tai." Kari opened her eyes to see her big brother. She smiled weakly.

"Hi Tai." She said quietly. Gatomon ran up to her. She stopped in her tracks when she saw her.

"What's wrong with her?" She asked almost in tears.

"She has a fever." Answered Matt. Joe groped around through his bag and came across children's medicine. He gave it to Tai. He opened it and was about to put the medicine in Kari's mouth when the ground started to shake.

"Aaah! An earthquake!" Cried Mimi. Suddenly Machindramon appeared treading through the forest. The digidestined and company screamed as he neared.

"Digidestined! I've waited impatiently for you to arrive and battle me, and since you haven't done so, I've decided to come after you instead!" Machindramon launched his attack.

"Giga cannon!" The children ducked expecting the attack to hit, but as they cowered it suddenly grew dark and they heard a groan of pain when the attack hit. They got up from their cowering positions to find a bright light. It began to shrink. The light faded to reveal Biyomon who collapsed in pain from the attack. Mara ran up to Biyomon and cradled her in her lap.

"Thank you Biyomon, you saved us!" She said.

"You're welcome." She heard Biyomon reply quietly. As Kari saw what Biyomon had done, a bright light surrounded her. Agumon and Gabumon ran up towards Machindramon.

"Agumon warp digivolve to Wargreymon!"

"Gabumon warp digivolve to Metalgarurumon!" Metalgarurumon launched his attack.

"Metal wolf claw!" An icy blast hit Machindramon causing him to freeze momentarily. As he was attempting to brake out of his icy restraint, Wargreymon charged towards him. With his claw, he sliced Machindramon into three and reverted back into Koromon. Machindramon dissolved into the air. Everyone cheered as they were left with only one Dark Master, Piedmon.

"Alright! Three down and one to go!" Tai said.

"Don't get too excited." A voice said. They turned to find Sora leaning up against a tree. Biyomon recovered and ran towards her. Mimi smiled with relief.

"Sora you're okay!" She cried. Sora gave her an odd look.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well you ran off to look for me and Joe but these kids said that in their time you never left." Mimi replied.

"Oh, that, well I just ran off to clear my head, I started having these strange feelings too." Everyone looked at her oddly as she explained what had happened to her.

Flashback

Right after Matt left, the group continued walking to their destination. Suddenly Sora stopped in her tracks as she heard someone in her mind say'Oh please let my children be alright.' Sora held her head as it kept running through her mind. She groaned as she tried to shake it out of her head. She then saw visions of a machine rocking with eight children inside it screaming. She began to feel sick in the stomach as she watched a young blond girl holding on tight to a boy with chestnut brown hair. There was a bright light and the kids had disappeared. For some strange reason she felt like crying and the words ran through her mind again. She tried to appear to be as if everything was alright as she confronted Tai who hadn't noticed her peculiar behavior. She made up the excuse to find Mimi and Joe and ran off with Biyomon following behind. As soon as she was out of sight she leaned against a tree holding her head and began to cry. Biyomon panicked as she saw her partner break down and cry.

"Sora what's wrong?!" Biyomon cried out. Sora just kept on sobbing. She couldn't control it, she felt as if she needed to. She closed her eyes tightly trying to stop the tears. Biyomon cried out her name but Sora couldn't hear her. Then all of a sudden the thoughts and visions stopped. She opened her eyes and panted heavily as she sat down with her back against the tree, putting a hand over her heart. Biyomon looked at her worriedly. 'What was that all about?' Sora thought to herself.

"Are you okay Sora?" Biyomon asked nervously. Sora saw her frightened friend and flashed a smile at her.

"I'm fine now." She said. Then suddenly she looked to the sky and saw a huge vortex covering it. She sat still and saw a small boy fall right into her lap.

"Huh? Where'd he come from?" He was unconscious so she decided to take him with her to go find the others. The only problem was that she didn't remember which direction she came from. She was trying so hard to get the visions out of her head that she didn't pay attention to her surroundings so she got up and went the wrong way and found she was getting Biyomon, the boy and herself farther away from the others so she gave up. The boy regained consciousness and realized what had happened and, being a five year old and not knowing any better, told her he was from the future and that she was his mom; he even showed her a picture of his mother when she was Sora's age.

"I really am your mom." She believed him and he even told her of what was to come in the future. Learning of what had happened, she knew that the world would be safe thanks to the digidestined and the darkness in her heart that she had been carrying around left her. Everything he told her shocked her and Biyomon alike. She then realized why she was having those visions; it was her future self's thoughts and memories of what happened. She then heard a rumbling and saw Machindramon.

"What's he doing here?"

"Is that Machindramon?" Asked her son. She nodded. She put the boy up in a tree and told Biyomon to digivolve into her ultimate level. They flew off to help their friends.

End of Flashback

The digidestined looked at her with amazement. She then reverted to her original subject.

"Anyways, even after we defeat Piedmon we'll still have one more adversary to face." Sora began to walk towards the group. Everyone gained confused looks.

"What are you talking about Sora? There are only four Dark Masters." Tai said.

"I know that but we still have to defeat another psychopathic digimon; Apocalymon." Everyone stared at her with disbelief except the children from the future. TK then realized something.

"Wait a minute, did you say that a boy from the future told you that you were his mom?" TK asked. Sora then got a look of realization, she had left him up in a tree and ran back in the direction she came from. The group stared at her awkwardly and then raced after her. As they ran, they heard someone playing a harmonica. They glanced at Matt.

"Why are you looking at me?" They noticed that he didn't have his harmonica out. They then saw Sora cross a small river and look up a tree. They all wondered what she was doing as they watched from the other side of the river.

"Hey the battle's over now!" They all looked at her strangely. Suddenly the sound of a harmonica being played ended and a small boy jumped out of the tree. Sora caught the boy, carried him across the river and set him down in front of her friends.

"Mara!" Cried the boy as he saw Mara run up to him. The two embraced each other. The boy wore a green long sleeved shirt with a pair of darker green overalls. He had short chestnut brown hair like Sora's except with a boyish haircut like Hiroshi and Dakedo. He also had fiery crimson eyes like Sora as well. The children parted.

"I'm guessing that he's Ariyo, right?" Tai said. Sora nodded.

"How'd you know?"

"He's the only kid we haven't found." The digidestined and digimon were in a state of confusion as they remembered that Sora said that she was Ariyo's mom. Matt then had a shocked expression on his face. 'Ariyo is her son? But then if Sora is Ariyo's mom, and I'm Mara's dad, and they're brother and sister, then that must mean that I-I-I...'